Audible Book Club

Star-Lord

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Introduction.

Audible are talking books from Amazon. Audible Membership: Amazon.co.uk: Books They are narrated by a single person and sometimes two or three people and sometimes by a whole cast like a radio play.

One title can be narrated by a few different readers so you have to listen to the sample and choose the voice you like the best. Some of the titles Audible recommends are terrible. Some are amazing.

They are quite expensive! But you buy credits and if you pay £14 pcm you get one credit a month. One credit is one book. Some of the books cost £40+ so credits are good. However if a book is less than £14, as many of them are, then you may as well pay cash and use your credit for the expensive ones. My cheapest recommendation is under £2. Audible also sell credits, in bundles, at reduced prices throughout the year.

I would like to share the titles I consider to be especially good. I do not often read a book twice but I can listen to an Audible title quite a few times.

All my recommendations are for the unabridged versions.

What is your favourite Audible book?
 
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Fourth recommendation. This one is a true epic. I hope you like listening to Stephen Fry because if not - you will not be able to listen to him for 71 hours and 57 mins. I have only listened to a few of these stories - they are so good I do not want to finish them too quickly. Amazing value for money. Cost £69.99 or 1 credit.

Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection (Audio Download): Amazon.co.uk: Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen Fry - introductions, Stephen Fry, Audible Studios: Books

Arthur Conan Doyle - Wikipedia
 
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47 hrs 47 mins. Listen before you buy because you will need to like, or be prepared to tolerate, the narrator's voice. What struck me about this book was how much Stephen King enjoys writing. He just goes on and on and on and it is so long and vast and utterly rambling. I do not think I will listen to this a second time. Would it be wrong to declare this literature? This is certainly a curiosity.

The Stand (Audio Download): Amazon.co.uk: Stephen King, Grover Gardner, Hodder & Stoughton: Books

The Stand - Wikipedia
 
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Star-Lord

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I have not posted in this thread for a while now. It is because I have had to give thought on how to proceed.... The time has come to discuss and recommend audible Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Why do Sailors like Science Fiction? Maybe it is because living on a sail boat is as close as we can get to living on a space ship? It makes sense to me!

Last Sci-Fi book conversation I had with a sailor was in Portugal.. She was twenty years older than me and recommended Snow Crash Amazon.com: Snow Crash: A Novel eBook: Stephenson, Neal: Kindle Store which has been downloaded to the clever Kindle but not yet read. I recommend she read Ancillary Justice: THE HUGO, NEBULA AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARD WINNER (Imperial Radch Book 1) eBook: Leckie, Ann: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store (a trilogy) because the books are written by a female and the protagonist is also a female which in Sci-Fi is as rare as hen's teeth! This set is highly recommend.

Unfortunately this trilogy, and the previous recommended trilogy, have yet to make it onto Audible Amazon.com: Europe In Autumn (The Fractured Europe Sequence Book 1) eBook: Hutchinson, Dave: Kindle Store but talking of a fractured Europe and a flu pandemic this trilogy is spooky.. everything (almost everything and obviously not as bad) has come to be! I have to mention these before I get stuck into Audible recommendations because these are books that I have read in the past few years and they are books that I think are worth reading if you are a jaded Sci-Fi fan who can't find a decent book to read.

How to start the Audible Sci-Fi / Fantasy section (not counting the books previously recommended) is becoming clearer as I write this short introduction. I suppose the previous recommendations of the H.G Wells collection and The Stand and Dune could be included in this selection but I do not consider then to be relevant as 'real Sci Fi'. For example Dune and Star Wars share many similarities - like ancient stories from a long, long time ago... not really Sci Fi but more like fables that could be set in any time or universe...they could be Western's. And The Stand, which has fantasy / supernatural elements - is just a rambling American novel. And HG Wells, the Godfather of Sci-Fi is just on another level.. his very own.

So the next selection of Audible titles will be a whole bunch of stuff but only by four of five authors. From 'Titus Groan' to 'Starman Jones' and beyond.
 
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Birdsong, the novel by Sebastian Faulks narrated by Peter Firth.
I wondered why Firth read in such a deadpan voice until he got to a bit which would have been unbearable otherwise. All the horror and stupidity of that terrible war
Thanks for the recommendation. Naration is an interesting subject.
 

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This is what's on the noise cancelling headphones at the moment...
 

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